New from Cambridge University Press!

Edited By Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt

This book "fills the unquestionable need for a comprehensive and up-to-date handbook on the fast-developing field of pragmatics" and "includes contributions from many of the principal figures in a wide variety of fields of pragmatic research as well as some up-and-coming pragmatists."

This edited volume gathers a selection of the papers given at the workshop'Revisiting Advanced Varieties in L2 Learning' at Aston University in 2006,organized by the editors Emmanuelle Labeau and Florence Myles, who state in abrief introduction that the purpose of the workshop was to revisit the researchconducted with L2 learners at high levels of proficiency and to provide anupdate since the publication of the 1997 'Acquisition et Interaction en LangueEtrangère' special issue edited by Inge Bartning on the same topic.

The goals of Chapter 1 (‘The advanced learner variety: 10 years later’, by IngeBartning) are to describe the advanced learner variety from the end-stateperspective and towards the end-state as a developmental perspective where theadvanced variety is identified with morpho-syntactic features along a six-stageacquisitional continuum (Bartning & Schlyter 2004) as well as to present astate-of-the-art account of the research carried out since 1997. Themorpho-syntactic features include verbal morphology, negation, object clitics,gender marking, and subordination. The advanced stage is described based onthree main criteria: TAM (tense, aspect, modality), subject-verb agreement, andthe distinction between finite and non-finite forms. This chapter alsointroduces preliminary findings from corpus data (Swedish learners living inParis), which illustrate verb and gender agreement errors produced by highlyproficient learners.

Chapter 2 (‘The use of verb morphology by advanced L2 learners and nativespeakers of French,' by Alex Housen, Nancy Kemps and Michel Pierrard) examineswhether Bartning & Schlyter’s (2004) acquisitional route and proficiency stagesproposed for L1 Swedish learners also hold for other L1 learners of L2 French.L1 Dutch learners perform a story-retelling task, in which their acquisition ofverbal morphology is tested, in particular the distinction between finite andnon-finite, subject-verb agreement marking, and the development of TAM. It isconcluded that overall the findings validate the criteria proposed by Bartning &Schylter, which include a number of morphological and syntactic features such asverb morphology, objects clitics and gender-marking, but these features may notbe sufficient. The authors suggest that learners can be at different proficiencystages depending on the linguistic criteria used; some features – such asinflectional verb morphology, subject-verb agreement and the distinction betweenfinite and non-finite forms used at the advanced stage – may also be morehelpful than others in discriminating stages of proficiency.

Chapter 3 (‘An imperfect mastery: the acquisition of the functions of imparfaitby anglophone learners,' by Emmanuelle Labeau) revisits the French 'imparfait'with a theoretical overview according to which the main difficulty for L1English learners of L2 French resides in the fact that the main aspectualdistinction is between the perfective and the progressive in English, whereas inFrench it is between the perfective and the imperfective, the latter beingencoded by the imparfait, which also expresses several semantic values (i.e.,imperfective, durative, iterative). Kilhlstedt (1998, 2002) and Howard (2005)used empirical data to propose different acquisitional stages based on empiricaldata which may be problematic. This chapter asks instead whether a developmentalorder for the imparfait could be based on theoretical accounts with animplicational scale of functions as well as other factors (verb types,discursive context). Analyses of cartoon retelling and a cloze test indicate astrong task effect (e.g., greater use of the imparfait in the cloze test than inthe narrative) as well a structural effect at the sentential level.

Chapter 4 (‘Short- versus long-term effects of naturalistic exposure on theadvanced instructed learner’s L2 development. A case study,’ by Martin Howard)surveys the study- abroad literature in order to examine the advanced learner’ssocio-pragmatic, lexical and grammatical development during and after astudy-abroad stay, the latter being less researched than the former. The chapterthen focuses on the use of verbal morphology to express past time by Irishlearners of L2 French, supported with longitudinal data (in the form ofinterviews) collected before, immediately after and a year after the learners'study-abroad stay in France and presents a case study based on a singleparticipant. The findings are mixed in that the learner progresses in some areas(e.g., present) but seems to regress in others (e.g., past tense morphology ingeneral) and stagnates in others (e.g., imparfait, discourse grounding).Studying abroad may not necessarily offer the best environment for morphologicaldevelopment contrary to popular belief.

Chapter 5 (‘Aspects of the interlanguage of advanced Greek-speaking Cypriotlearners of French: relative clauses,’ by Monique Monville-Burston and FryniKakoyianni-Doa) examines the written productions of multilingual (Cypriot Greek,Standard Modern Greek and English) L2 French learners to study relativeconstructions. Only about 15% of the learners’ relative clauses are non-standardin that relative clauses with clause-initial relative pronouns are replaced byreduced, resumptive, pleonastic or null-connective relative clauses, some ofwhich are attested in non-standard forms of French even by educated nativespeakers. Future research will examine possible factors that may contribute inthe immediate or more distant context to the triggering of these non-standardforms.

Chapter 6 (‘The advanced L2 writer of French: a study of number agreement inSwedish learners,’ by Malin Ågren) compares the written productions of 60 L1Swedish learners of L2 French (Corpus Ecrit de Français Langue Etrangère) withFrench native speakers to analyze morphological number marking and agreement innominal and verbal phrases. Findings show that omissions of the silent plural'–s' are extremely rare: Advanced L2 learners omit the plural marker on thirdperson pronouns less frequently than the native speakers and more so on regularverbs than on irregular verbs. On the other hand, plural agreement is lessconsistent on adjectives than on verbs.

Chapter 7 (‘Formulaic sequences: a distinctive feature at the advanced/veryadvanced levels of second language acquisition,’ by Fanny Forsberg) first pointsout that the term ‘formulaic language/sequences’ is problematic because it isused differently by various researchers and also because it can refer to,without being the same as, other terms such as collocations, idiomaticexpressions, prefabs and so on. The present chapter proposes a new definition ofa formulaic sequence as an element being composed of “at least two graphicwords. It is preferred, that is more frequent in a given context, in nativespeakers’ production, than a combination that could have been equivalent hadthere been no conventionalization” (p. 177, original emphasis). The analyses ofinterviews of three groups of learners (advanced, very advanced L2 learners andFrench native speakers from the InterFra corpus, Bartning & Schlyter 2004)reveal significant differences (e.g., general quantity of formulaic sequences,overuse of discourse markers) between advanced learners and very advancedlearners, the latter being very close to native speakers.

Chapter 8 (‘The acquisition of phraseological units by advanced learners ofFrench as an L2: high frequency verbs and learner corpora,’ by Catherine Bolly)analyzes written phraseological units or (semi-) fixed lexical combinations withthe two high-frequency verbs 'donner' (give) and 'prendre' (take). The L2French corpus FRIDA (French interlanguage database) contains argumentative textswritten by L1 English learners and the control corpus is made of texts writtenby French university students. The results of quantitative, parametric andstatistical analyses in terms of overuse, underuse and misuse reveal significantdifferences between 'prendre' and 'donner' in the frequency of use,phraseological units being underused with 'prendre' but overused with 'donner.'

Chapter 9 (‘Syntactic complexity and discourse complexity in Japanese L1 andFrench L2: three case studies,’ by Dominique Klingler) compares principles ofsyntactic and discourse organization and examines how they are inter-related inthe written narratives produced in L1 Japanese and L2 French by threeparticipants (already partially analyzed in Klingler-Maestrali 2001). Theanalysis shows that at times advanced Japanese learners may use more complexsyntactic and textual structures in their L2 than in their L1 in a reportivestyle and that they tend to use coordination devices rather than integrativedevices; they also use the equivalent of topicalization markers.

Chapter 10 (‘Style in L2: the icing on the cake?’ by Henry Tyne) considers theissue of style as part of sociolinguistic competence. It analyzes speech samplescollected from L1 English learners of L2 French at two different levels (firstyear students and fourth year students) in three different situations: formaloral presentation, formal conversation and informal conversation. Findingsestablish that there is variation in the L2 data, but that the advanced learnersdo not necessarily show the most variation; as part of naturally occurringsocial interaction, it seems that variation in style is evidenced among lessadvanced learners as well.

Chapter 11 (‘The influence of L1 French on near native French learners ofEnglish: the case of simultaneity,’ by Pascale Leclercq) focuses on the conceptof ‘ongoingness,’ which is grammatically marked in English with '-ing' butlexically marked in French with 'être en train de.' How close to native speakersdo L2 learners get in expressing ongoingness in situations of simultaneity? Afilm-retelling task consisted in asking participants (12 French native speakers,20 English native speakers and 10 French L2 speakers of English) to watch fivevideo commercials as often as necessary to memorize them and be able to recountthe events. Clear differences were observed between the French and Englishnative speakers regarding use of presentatives, temporal adverbs and aspect. Itappears that the performance of very advanced French learners of English isnative-like at the microstructural level but remains influenced by the L1 at themacrostructural level.

EVALUATION

First, regarding the overall organization of the volume, it is somewhatsuprising that the chapters are not numbered (they were numbered above in theorder in which they appear in the volume) and there is no thematic division ofthe volume either, although it is mentioned in the introduction that “thecontributions are distributed in 4 parts” (p. 8): 1) advanced L2 morpho-syntax(the first five chapters); 2) lexis and formulaic sequences (the following twochapters); 3) discourse and pragmatics (the following two chapters). Theremaining chapters are not mentioned. Most of the chapters thus investigate theacquisition of morpho-syntactic features, the two chapters on lexis andformulaic sequences (a somewhat neglected area generally) as well as the chapteron stylistic variation are a welcome addition to the volume, which would alsohave benefitted from at least one chapter on phonological acquisition and/orvariation, an important part of an advanced learner’s repertoire. This interesting volume illustrates both the importance and the difficulties ininvestigating and defining advanced stages of proficiency in a given language.Clear criteria would bring a greater uniformity in empirical studies, making thefindings more generalizable and reliable. But not all the chapters use Bartning& Schlyter’s (2004) acquisitional route and proficiency stages outlined in thefirst chapter; instead, some chapters use different criteria (e.g., years ofinstruction or classes in which participants are enrolled) to argue that theparticipants were advanced learners, which means that the volume lacks somewhatin consistency and the reader may be left with more questions than answers aboutwhich criteria can truly be used to describe an advanced learner. Chapter 2 by Alex Housen, Nancy Kemps and Michel Pierrard is the most helpful infurthering the criteria and stages that Bartning & Schlyter (2004) propose,because it systematically examines whether they hold for other L1 learners of L2French. The three points of their conclusion – a) the criteria proposed byBartning & Schylter are valid but not always; b) different linguistic criteriamay place learners at different proficiency stages; c) some features may be morehelpful than others in discriminating stages of proficiency – show how crucialit is to continue to test these criteria and stages. Finally, the literature review of most chapters is generally limited to researchcarried out in Europe, where most of the L2 French corpora are being gathered,but a number of worthwhile empirical studies carried out elsewhere could haveinformed the discussion particularly in the area of the acquisition of TAM(e.g., Salaberry 2008).

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Dalila Ayoun is an Associate Professor of French Linguistics and SLAT
(Second Language Acquistion and Teaching) in the department of French and
Italian at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She also holds a courtesy
appointment in the Department of Linguistics. Her main research interests
focus on French applied linguistics and second language acquisition from a
generative perspective.